


A strong human

by DeanWinchest



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Crime, F/F, F/M, Genderswap, Girl/Girl, Homosexuality, POV Female Character, Romance, discovering sexuality, female - Freeform, female/female - Freeform, female/male - Freeform, slight Greg/Joan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-18
Updated: 2014-07-05
Packaged: 2018-01-25 14:08:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1651409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeanWinchest/pseuds/DeanWinchest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joan Watson is a strong woman, raised to be better than the men around her. When she is send home from war, her worst enemy seems to be her sexist coworkers - until she gets invovled with the beautiful Sherlock Holmes. New challenges will rise, in shape of both love and war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Independant and the Rash

**Author's Note:**

> This is not brit picked, and I will be taking some liberties here and there, so bear with me.  
> Aso, English is not my first language, so if you find any mistakes, do not hesitate to point them out.  
> Constructive critisism and ideas will be appreciated, whereas verbal harassment will not.

The pub was clouded with smoke, the flickering yellow lamps bathing the guests in dim light. Rowdy drunkards were either up in the bar or down in a booth, neither of the mentioned wanting to sit at the tables. Signs were hanging low, advertising old beer brands and cigerette recommendations, making the place seem more crowded than it actually was.

"No way I could lose to a girl," yelled a man by the bar, having consumed one too many drinks, which had taken away his ability to judge when he was being too loud.

"Excuse me, but I'm a grown woman, thank you," said a woman, whose golden mane fell down her back to her shoulderblades, obvious that it had been nowhere near any products or styling. "And if I recall, you did challenge me - scared you're going to lose now?" The woman made an almost invisible smile, which seemed more challeging than kind.

The man didn't say anything, though their shared friends did "ooh" at her remark. Silently, without losing eyecontact, he set his albow on the table, the woman mimicking the motion.

The arm wrestle lasted no more than a few minutes, and the blonde threw her hands up in a victorious gesture. The man, bitter, muttered an insult, but his voice was soon drowned out by their mates hollering and slapping the woman on the back, yelling for the bartender to bring another round - on the losers tab, of course.

Just as this was happening, a figure slipped into the empty chair near the blonde victor.

 

* * *

 

"A pleasure drinking on your tab, Stewie."

Joan Hamish Watson wasn not what you would normally call "competetive". Sure, she liked wiping out her annoying colleague, Stewart, but that was only because she got to see the proud man lose to a woman, who he thought himself better than - which was bullocks, taken as they were both doctors. Stewart was a selfproclaimed lady's man, and when the newly hired doctor, Joan, didn't take the bait, he did everything within his power to make himself look better than Joan - in which he sometimes succeeded. Unfortunately.

_At least I can take him down a few notches, beating him in a muscle game_ , Joan thought to herself and couldn't help but smirk at her defeated colleage.

"It's dr. Lennert to you, Watson," Stewart mumbled into his beer.

Joan's smirk was deffinately visible by then, so in order not to anger her colleague further, she turned away from Stewart and glanced around the pub. No one really stood out - except for one.

Two stools from her sat a beautiful woman. She was tall and slender, boarderline skinny, with chocolate coloured curls wheaving their way down to her shoulders, a few strands sticking out in a messy, but charming look supported by the fact that she was wearing very expensive looking clothing. Her upper body was concealed by a purple button up shirt in a silky fabric, tugged into highwaisted, blacks trousers, matched with some black office-like heels. Her coat was draped over the back of the stool.

She was absolutely gorgeous, and she was looking straight at Joan.

Before Joan got the chance to turn away in embarresment, having been caught staring at her, the lady got up with her coat and stalked over to Joan like a predetor mesmerising it's prey.

"Come along," she said with a low voice and a teasing glint in her eyes, as she motioned her head towards the fire exit that led into the alley behind the pub.

Joan didn't know what got into her, but as soon as the lady had passed by her, Joan scrambled to her feet and followed the dark curls and smell of expensive perfume, ignoring the questioning stares from her colleages.

Joan was hadn't even taken five steps into the night air, before she was grabbed and thrown against a wall.

Her training kicked in and, before she could wonder why a clearly weaker woman would try to assault her, she had pinned the lady on to the ground, gasping as the air was knocked out of her lungs.

"What in the world are you doing?" asked Joan, more confused than angry - but deffinately angry too.

"Trying to solve a case, you complete idiot," hissed the woman, putting emphasis on the t in "idiot". "Let go of me, I am clearly no threat!"

Without a word, Joan released her grip on the lady's arms and stood up. Joan offered the lady a helping hand, but she swatted it away.

"Excuse me, but weren't you the one trying to attack me first?" snapped Joan at the hostile lady.

_I should've known with my luck_ , Joan sighed internally. This gorgeous woman had shown up,asked her to follow her, and now it turned out she was a complete psychopath!

"Sociopath," the woman said as she got up, like it made completly sense. When Joan just stared at her, she sighed dramatically. "I'm a high functioning Sociopath, not a Psycopath. Do your research."

Joan just blinked. "How-"

"How I knew what you were thinking?" the lady finished. She smirked right before she started a flood of words, almost without breathing. "Same way I can tell that you're a doctor at a nearby hospital, most likely st. Barts, you live close by, barely being able to pay the rent as you live alone in the middle of London, recently back from war, hand me your phone."

It took a moment before the last request sank in - without even thinking about it, she handed over her phone, still baffled by how much this _stranger_ knew about her.

"Wha- why, how?" She frowned as she was unable to form a complete sentence. The lady snatched the phone out of her hand, and started going through it. "Don't bother, it's coded-"

"Hardly," the lady snorted and after a minute, she handed it back, screen lit as a proof to Joan that the lady had indeed guessed her password. "You also have an alcoholic sister."

"You done?" Joan asked after a moment of silence. After a nod from the lady, Joan continued, "how did you know all of that?"

"Easy," said the lady, an arrogant glint in her eye. "The pub is clearly only for locals, as it is tucked away in a mess of alleys, making it safe from tourists, and if any actually found the pub, the most logical move is to sit at the tables, allowing a fake sense of privacy because no one else sits there; the locals knows that the chairs all tilt to one, a manufacorting mistake, probably why the owner got them, as they were much cheaper."

"What does that have to do with anything?" asked Joan, growing weary as the situation dawned on her: a complete stranger had just lured her into an alley and was now rambling about the pub.

"You and your companions clearly went for the bar, though there was already some others there, which proves they knew about the tilting chairs, and the bartender clearly recognised your colleagues, only having to ask _you_ which beer you wanted, that proving that your colleagues are locals.  
    You, probably new to the hospital, was convinced by the others to go out drinking as your welcome party. Your colleages all wear rather expensive clothing, making them earn enough money to be able to be picky about their appearance, so what pays well but not all that much these times, most likely a high ranking office person or a validated doctor, most likely a doctor, St. Bart being the closest hospital and the others clearly used to the local society, St Bart it is.  
    Also, you, clearly not dressing as expensively as the others, probably have less money, and besides being a woman and generally earning less than a man, the money has to go somewhere, and what is money consuming? Rent, especially mid London, an apartment complex not to far from here, rather close the St. Bart, but to have obiously as little money as you, you have to be paying alone."

"And the army part...?" At this point Joan was visibly gaping.

"If we choose not to look at your martial arts knowledge, which you have just demonstrated,-" she rubbed the arm, Joan had pinned to her back earlier. "-you hold yourself rank, have a slight tan, not above the sleeve, proving you weren't sunbathing, so a vacation was out, leaving you, a trained doctor, to most likely be out as a doctor in midst of war, Afghan or Irac then."

"Afghan, but how about my phone...?"  
"Obvious, if you would actually bother to observe," the lady sighed. "The code was easy enough the break as you fingers have pressed the same code several times, leaving grease on the screen from your fingers, now a code consisting of four numbers, a rather long shot, but guessing as you're probably born in April, judging from the birthstone on your necklace, 04 is probably the latter part and then it was just a matter of guessing.  
    Now, the thing about your sister is interesting, as it is clearly not you phone, it being too expensive, it was probably a present for someone, taken as the recievers name, Jaime, is engraved in the back, something most probably a lover would do, but, now, you're single clearly, taken as you're out alone with a bunch of male friends you barely know, which a boyfriend wouldn't find comforting, so someone else, a sibling most likely. But it has come to your possesion because she didn't want it as she probably broke up with him, giving it to you, if he had broken up with her, she would have kept it, but she got rid of it, so as to not having to look at it.  
    The alcoholic part becomes clear when you look at the charger hole in the top, now, you take good care of you expensive things, judging by your necklace, so you wouldn't just fumble about in order to plug it in, that would need someone with unsteady hands; who has unsteady hands? Alcoholics most probably in this case, so she left him because he kept nagging her to stop drinking, she got tired of it, broke up and dumped the phone with you."

"That's..." Joan tried to find the right word in her now throbbing head. "Amazing."

The lady just stared at her. "Really?" she said, sounding a bit surprised.

"Yeah, that was bloody brilliant," Joan said, almost breathless.

"Well, then..." the lady said, smiling at the compliment. "That's not usually what I'm told."

"What are you usually told?"

"Piss off." Joan laughed at this, and soon after the lady joined in too.

"Well, nice to meet you, I'm Joan Watson." Joan frowned after she had reached out her hand. "If you don't already know that."

"Sherlock Holmes," the lady said with a small smile.

"Now, Sherlock, what am I doing in an alley?" Joan raised an eyebrow as she asked.

"Ah, right," Sherlock said, growing serious. "I need you to scream really loudly."


	2. The Confused and the Pessimist

”Sherlock, what a pleasant surprise,” drawled the man with a not entirely honest glint in his eye.

”Shut it, Mycroft, I need you to look into someone.”

 

* * *

 

 

After having met the infamous Sherlock Holmes in a rather odd manner, Joan decided not to seek out the lady again. Well, not as much decided as it was damn near impossible to get any information on her.  
After Sherlock had coaxed Joan into making a high-pitched scream, she’d took out her phone and called someone, asking if they’d heard that. A somewhat pissed voice mumbled something back that Joan didn’t quite hear. Sherlock had then hung up and ran off, leaving the confused Joan in the middle of a dirty alley – of course, she’d just gone inside and re-joined her mates, but the image of the stylish woman hadn’t left her mind since then.

It’d taken Joan about a week to finally somehow accept that the probability of ever meeting that lady again was impossible.  
In spite of this, Joan still found herself daydreaming of another encounter with Sherlock Holmes.  
 _Stop right this moment, Joan Watson_ , she thought to herself as she sat in the restaurant, looking out the streets of London. _You’re not gay; you’ve never been and never will be._

Joan rolled her shoulders to lose the tension that had at some point centred in the low of her neck.

Just when her mind had finally wandered from Miss Holmes to what on Earth she wanted to order, a stranger slipped into the seat across from her.  
 _Scratch that_ , Joan thought. The stranger was no stranger after all.

“’Evening, Joan,” purred Sherlock with a slight smile.

“Sherlock,” Joan said, flabbergasted. “What on Earth are you-“

“Sherlock Holmes,” said the waiter, who seemingly appeared out of nowhere. He half-hugged Sherlock and didn’t seem to notice her slight displeasure from this. “So, this is your date?” he continued, looking at Joan. He spoke again before Joan could deny his assumption. “This fella got me out of a murder charge, she did!”

“I merely proved that at the time of the murder he was on the other side of town, stealing from an apartment,” Sherlock said, unaffected by the praise.

“Got me out of prison, she did.” The waiter – no, owner – ignored Sherlock’s words.  
Quite awhile later, Angelo, the owner, went off to take care of some business, which left the two women alone again, small-talking through the free meal taht had arrived almost the minute Angelo had left them.  
Joan wasn’t mistaken about Sherlock; in fact the dim light of the pub hadn’t at all done her justice. The woman was beyond gorgeous, and Joan found herself staring a bit too intently at Sherlock, and hurriedly started to stuff her mouth with food again; trying to do something – _anything_ – else than staring at the beauty across from her.  
 _I thought, we’d been over this_ , Joan thought angrily. _You’re not gay._

“The rent in London is getting expensive,” Sherlock said after a moment’s silence.

Joan looked up from her meal, to stare blankly at the lady across, who hadn’t eaten anything yet, much to Joan’s dismay. “Sorry, what?”

“The rent,” Sherlock repeated, clearly impatient. “The expenses of a lone tenant are not a small matter anymore, as you surely know.”

“Yes…” Joan hesitated at this, not knowing why Sherlock had brought this up. “What of it?”

“Say,” Sherlock continued as if Joan hadn’t spoken, “how do you feel about the violin?”

“Sorry, what?”

“The violin,” Sherlock explained, looking out the window and sipping of her wine. “I tend to play it when I’m thinking and I sometimes go for days without talking – potential flatmates should know the worst about each other, don’t you agree?”

”Flatmates?” repeated Joan, almost choking on a piece of salmon. “We barely know anything about each other!”

“Don’t we?” asked Sherlock with a smirk, glancing at Joan.

“ _I_ don’t know anything about _you_.” Joan lay down the silverware, too occupied with the subject at hand. “For all I know you could be, what, a murderer!”

“You like the idea of danger,” hummed Sherlock, turning back to gazing out the window.

“I do not,” denied Joan, feeling the frown take over.

“Please, Joan, don’t be tedious.” Silence hung over them for a couple of minutes, until Sherlock finally continued: “What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know,” Joan said with a deeper frown, picking up her fork to push the food around her plate. Hesitantly, she spoke: “Like, do you have a boyfriend?”

Sherlock, who had resumed watching the streets outside the window, merely mumbled: “Not really my area.”

“Oh,” Joan said relaxed, but then a thought struck her. “Oh, a _girlfriend_ then?”

Sherlock frowned slightly at this. “No.”

“Oh, single,” Joan chuckled awkwardly, trying to light the tension she wasn’t sure she imagined. “Unattached, like me.”

Sherlock looked at Joan then, frown deepening. Joan, not knowing what to do with those blue crystals looking straight at her, faked a smile, she hoped looked real.

“I feel like I should say this,” Sherlock said, leaning forward and focused entirely on Joan now. “I consider myself married to my work, Joan.”

“What? Sure- wait, no, no, no, that’s not-“ Joan stumbled over the words, trying to form a sentence, which would describe just how much Joan _wasn’t_ trying to flirt with Sherlock. Because she definitely wasn’t. At all. “I’m not – not that there’s anything wrong with being-”

“I know,” Sherlock cut her off with, still directing those pale orbs at Joan, taking in everything.

“Yes, that’s not what I’m saying, just…” Joan took a deep breath and tried to talk properly. “I’m just saying it’s good. It’s all good.” It didn’t really make sense in Joan’s ears, but Sherlock seemed to understand it as she again turned her head to look outside.

Joan continued on her meal, trying not to blush at the thought of that awkward conversation she’d just had with Sherlock Holmes.

“Anything else?” Sherlock suddenly said.

Joan, not wanting to get in the middle of another conversation that could lead to such an awful ending, mumbled: “No, I’m good.”

“Good, there’s this wonderful flat on Baker Street, I know the owner, she’ll give us a great offer-“

Joan swallowed her food and interrupted before Sherlock got too far ahead with her little delusion: “I’m still not moving in with you. Why in the world would I even want to share a flat with you?”

“Because you like the danger,” repeated Sherlock with a knowing smile.

“I do not,” Joan idly denied.

“I wouldn’t be so sure…” Before Sherlock had finished the sentence, her eyes seemed to focus on something out on the street, and the next thing they knew, Sherlock bolted right out through the door. Joan, not knowing what to do (and quite a bit curious), followed Sherlock out into the London night.

Joan, as she got up from her seat and threw her napkin, couldn’t help but wonder why she suddenly felt the urge to follow this practical stranger, who didn’t show any interest in her besides the fact that she had sought her out.

Perplexed, she also speculated on how Sherlock had found her to begin with. 


	3. The Disappointment and the Gambler

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little bit of background story, and for those of you looking for the romantic stuff, don't fret, it will be in the next chapter or the one after that.  
> Constructive criticism is always appriciacted.

Joan didn’t remember much growing up. Just the fact that her father had really wanted a son, and when the first kid turned out to be a girl, the hopes had been set on the second. Joan, following four years after her older sister, had been a bit of a disappointment to her farther, to say the least.

So, through her childhood, the things she remembered the most was either acting like the son, her dad had wanted, or been struck because she couldn’t be the son, her dad had needed.

This did mean that Joan had grown up in an abusive home. Harriet, or Harry as Joan called her, had told her that the early years weren’t all that bad. Their farther had tried to settle with the fact that he would be the only man to live in that house, but as they grew older and started to show interest in boys, makeup, dresses, etc. a cloud seemed to darken their fathers mind.

Harry didn’t do well with violence or raised voices – to be honest, Harry was quite frail – so she quickly dived into troubles. She wasn’t really home much during Joan’s teen years.

Which had left Joan with their father. Joan quickly learned that her father was the happiest and kindest when she did “boyish” activities, such as repairing broken stuff, building stuff, burping – yes, even burping set her father in a slightly better mood.

Along the way, Joan genuinely started to enjoy these things, but the older she got; the more she got looked down upon.

The girls thought she was weird for acting more like a boy than a girl and just generally stayed clear of her.

For the most part, the boys were fine – they were fun to hang out with. But sometimes they seemed to remind themselves that Joan was in fact a girl, and then treat her like she was fragile, or mock her when she tried to do something boy-like.

This made her strive to do everything the boys could do – but better, because, surely, they wouldn’t look down on her, like her dad, if she proved herself to them.

Somewhere along the way, Joan’s complex developed into her life goal. She studied and she trained, and before she knew of it, she was assistant surgeon in the army.

Later, she was send home for the very reason, she had gotten there. It pained her somewhat to be back in London, working in St. Bartholomew hospital, alongside some generally nice people, and some not so much.

Joan very much felt like she was back to square one, sitting on the bench with boys who thought she wouldn’t amount to be more than a housewife.

But, damnit, Joan was a former soldier and a _fantastic_ doctor, and somehow, she was sure, she would find a way back into the spotlight.

Though standing over a woman, coughing up blood in the light of a street lamp wasn’t really what Joan had expected, when thinking that.

Sherlock had apparently spotted this woman stumbling out of the apartment, she was in front of, and was now heading inside.

Joan wanted to follow the tall brunette, but her inner doctor made her drop down beside the stranger and try to save her, if possible.

It soon became clear that she was beyond what Joan could do. She lay still on the abandoned and dirty streets of London, breathing her final, gurgling breath into the lonely night.

In spite of having been to a warzone and handling death almost every day, a little piece of Joan always died along with her patients. True, this woman wasn’t her patient, but Joan couldn’t help but think, as she closed the woman’s empty eyes, that if she had been a moment earlier, she could have done something. Or at least had the chance to try.

Instead this woman died on the cold pavement of England, without as much as a last word.

Joan came back from being lost in thoughts as she heard Sherlock shuffle around inside. Joan quickly got to her feet and ran inside – only to halt on the threshold.

Sherlock was bent over a dead man, lying next to another younger man; dead as well.

“Sherlock?” Joan looked from the brunette to the dead bodies and back again. “What is going on?”

“The game, Joan,” Sherlock said and looked at the blonde, who saw a glint of amusement in the other woman’s eye, “is _on_!”


	4. The Tenant and the Thief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit longer chapter than the previous one's, but I wanted to slip some sugar in, so enjoy

”So, basically, there’s a serial killer on the loose, somewhere in London?” Joan looked expectantly at the blue eyed woman.

The previous night was a blur; everything happened too fast for Joan to really understand.

Shortly after they’d discovered the bodies, Sherlock had called up someone on the phone, which Joan vaguely remember hearing the first time she’d met Sherlock too. Who was this person, whom she kept calling?

It turned out to be a policeman – well, Detective Inspector, actually. Greg Le-something. Joan didn’t really remember.

Anyway, he and a bunch of other people – forensics, officers, and some other people – showed up not long after, but not before Sherlock had convinced Joan of trying to figure out the cause of death. Luckily, her training and old habits of the army kicked in and she did most of the work without even having too think all that much.

When Le-something and his troops showed up, they yelled at both Sherlock and Joan for having disturbed the evidence, though Sherlock insisted on not having done anything like that. They’d merely found these people, checked to see if they were alive and they weren’t. Obviously.

Afterwards, Sherlock had abandoned Joan without even bidding a goodbye, so the blonde had had to hail a cab herself and get home. She was absolutely exhausted, but didn’t forget to set an alarm, so she wouldn’t sleep in – though the chance of her doing so, even if it was her day off, was slim as she was used to getting up early anyway.

Anyway, she’d gotten up in the morning and headed down to the police department to give her statement of what had happened the night previous. There she’d met Sherlock, who seemed to be pouting, which Joan thought was absolutely ridiculous, and had therefore ignored the woman until the moment she had asked above mentioned question. She was about to leave, done with giving her statement, but she was too curious about all this to just vanish and probably for sure never meet Sherlock Holmes ever again.

“Very good, Joan,” said Sherlock, who was curled up in an unconfutable position in a yellow plastic chair. She wasn’t looking at Joan, but the slight smirk was definitely directed at her. “To answer your question, yes, there is a serial killer on the loose, though the police seem to want to hide it from the public as of yet. The murders look like suicide anyway, so why not let the public think so; the people being too stupid to realize what’s going on, quite frankly.”

Joan snorted and couldn’t help but smile at the ridiculous, grown woman in front of her. “Well, not everyone is a genius.”

“Clearly.”   
  


* * *

  

Joan didn’t really know how she ended up doing it, but somehow she and the brunette ended up taking a stroll through a nearby park. Sherlock had apparently given her statement quite a while before Joan showed up, and the blonde later wondered why Sherlock had waited for her.

It was autumn and the trees were shedding their leaves, scattering the once green inhibitors all over the path, making crisp noises under their feet as they walked past the scenery.

They hadn’t spoken since they’d left the police station and Joan used the time not talking to sneak glances at the taller woman.

Her curls were bouncing along with her steps and her open shawl coat fluttered along with the breeze. Under the coat she wore a dark blue button up shirt and dark pencil skirt. Even though she as wearing some very sensible shoes, they looked incredible on the fashionable lady.

Joan wondered if she perhaps should have done something more about her appearance. Under her windbreaker, she wore a grey jumper and some old jeans. Her sneakers looked quite a bit dirty and her hair was probably a mess, but if it bothered Sherlock she didn’t say anything about it.

_Oh well_ , Joan thought as she absentmindedly brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. _I couldn’t very well have known I’d be out for a walk with Miss Universe today._

“I found a tenant,” Sherlock suddenly said, not even glancing in Joan’s direction.

“Sorry, what?” Joan asked though she had it perfectly.

“Disappointed?” Sherlock inquired and stopped walking. Joan stopped in front of the brunette and looked displeased. Of course she wasn’t disappointed, that would be ridiculous – or at least, that is what Joan told herself.

Joan pursed her lips, clenched her fists and stood more upright. _Why in the world would I be disappointed? I already told her, I didn’t want to be flatmates!_

“Sherlock, I-“Joan started but was quickly interrupted.

“Sherlock, get back here!” Joan looked over the consultant detective’s shoulder and saw the Detective Inspector, Greg Le-something, running towards them. Sherlock saw him too, grasped Joan’s hand and started running.

Joan, not knowing what was going on, ran along but didn’t notice that the hand on hers didn’t let go.

 

* * *

 

Joan was panting hard as Sherlock slammed the door behind them. They were in a dark hallway only lit up by an ugly, old lamp with a green lampshade. It was apartment complexes, squeezed in between some other buildings, probably build in the later 1800’s. It had a homey-feel to it, though Joan didn’t notice it right at that moment, because she and Sherlock were collapsed up against one of the walls in the narrow hall, breathing hard.

“Why was he chasing us?” Joan asked between breaths and turned her head towards Sherlock.

“Sometimes, when he annoys me, I nick his badge,” Sherlock and held up the mentioned as proof.

“You…” Joan trailed off. Then she started to laugh. Sherlock send her a disapproving look though she soon joined in. For a solid minute they just laughed and leaned against each other. When they finally stopped giggling, Joan turned her head to say something to the woman next to her, but stopped dead in her tracks. Sherlock was already looking at her; a look in her eyes, Joan couldn’t quite decipher, but her something fluttered in her stomach and her hands were tingling. She couldn’t really care less about what Sherlock’s eyes were saying, just the fact that her lips were parting slightly.

Joan suddenly became hypersensitive about everything. She could feel Sherlock’s arm against hers, burning a trace into her skin from where their hands touched. Joan could feel the heat ebbing off of the taller woman, seething into her skin and settling in the pit of her stomach. Small flicks of lighting seemed to travel from the tips of her fingers up by her spine, making her feel like her head is on fire. Everything but the gorgeous face of Sherlock seemed to blur to the point where Joan could focus on nothing but the silvery blue eyes that still held that look – _that look_ Joan had seen before.

The same look she had in her eyes, when she and Joan had found the bodies the day evening before.

_“I consider myself married to my work.”_

Joan snapped out of it and forced herself to move away from the enticing cupids bow. For a moment, it seemed like Sherlock would follow her and capture her lips, but she didn’t.

Sherlock’s eyes then conveyed something Joan understood: Confusion. Joan looked away to stop herself from reading too much into it.

“I am disappointed,” Joan blurted before she could think better of it. Sherlock waited for an explanation, but Joan was busy inwards cursing at herself.

“I lied,” Sherlock said with a smirk. “There is no other tenant.”

“What?” Joan’s eyes widened as she started to realize, what was going on.

Sherlock yelled into the apartment: “Mrs. Hudson, she’ll take it!”


	5. The Soldier and the Detective

”Sorry?”

Joan turned her head and saw Greg Le-something, a beer in hand and slightly glassy eyes.

“Ah, yes, DI Leraou is it?” Joan mentally slapped herself for not just calling the man Greg and not having to go through guessing the man’s surname.

“Lestrade, actually,” he said with a sympathetic grin and shook Joan’s outstretched hand. “Call me Greg though. Joan was it?”

“Yes, Joan Watson,” she said and flagged down the bartender, ordering a beer when he came around.

Joan didn’t want to go to the pub she went to with her colleagues last time, fearing she might meet some of them and have to talk with them. So she had wandered for a bit and wound up at the first and best pub near Baker Street.

Anyhow, Greg turned out to be pleasant company, which surprised Joan. She’d expected him to be a bit of a killjoy, but he was both funny and quite smart, though Sherlock always seemed to refer to him as an idiot.

 _But then again, everyone was an idiot when it came to Sherlock_ , Joan thought with a bitter grimace and took a large gulp of what now was her third beer.

“So, what brings you here, Joan?” Greg asked, apparently picking up on Joan’s foul mood.

“It’s just…” Joan paused to decide whether or not she should confide with Greg on this matter – he _was_ practically a stranger, but then again Joan was pretty tipsy, so why not? “Sherlock keeps guessing my password and using my computer – _without_ my consent! And then he _refuses_ to apologize!”

“That’s Sherlock for you,” Greg said cheerfully and touched glasses. He then thought of something and hesitantly asked: “You and Sherlock…?”

“Ah, yeah, we live together,” Joan explained. “I moved in last week, and-“

“Sorry, no, that wasn’t what I meant,” Greg interrupted and smiled awkwardly. “I mean, like, are you and Sherlock-“he swallowed something “- involved?”

“What?” Silvery blue eyes flashed through Joan’s mind. She felt her face get hot and hoped Lestrade thought it was the alcohol and not the taboo inside Joan that made her blush. To cover up what probably looked like a distressed grimace, she started to laugh and quickly added: “No, no, no, no, not at all – I don’t, no. Greg, we’re not, like, we’re just flatmates. Seriously.”

“Okay, it was just a question,” Greg retreated and then changed the subject. “So, how is it living with a psychopath?”

“Sociopath,” Joan corrected in spite of herself. She quickly launched into telling Greg about all the weird things Sherlock did at home – how she always walked around in her cosy bathrobe, refusing to put anything on; how she would refuse to eat unless it was minimal meals; how she couldn’t be bothered to get up and get things herself, and would sometimes send Joan messages even though she was on the opposite side of town or at work. Eventually they stopped talking about Sherlock, and found that they actually had a lot in common.

 

* * *

 

 

The next couple of days, Joan found herself left to her own for the most part. Sherlock was working some cases and didn’t take Joan up on her offers of help. Instead Joan cleaned the cluttered apartment, cooked, tried to get Sherlock to at least eat _something_ and then clean up the new clutter Sherlock somehow produced, though Joan swore she never saw the brunette actually move from her “thinking pose”.

It had almost been a week when Sherlock finally ran out of cases. Finally the woman ate at least something and actually wandered around every once in a while, which was a relief to Joan - for about half an hour.

“Sherlock, seriously!” Joan exclaimed at the taller woman on the couch. “I do realize that you are bored, but how about instead of complaining about it, you actually bloody do something!” Joan was usually a pretty patient person, but having Sherlock moaning about her boredom nonstop, pressed all the wrong buttons.

Sherlock, who had finally sat up, looked like she was in deep thought and then murmured something about Joan being right. She then got up and went towards the bedrooms.

Joan, thinking that was the last of it, returned to reading her book. She even managed to read five pages before out of the corner of her eye saw Sherlock had returned to the living room. The brunette lifted her arm in a familiar way that made Joan’s whole body tense up.

She was just about to put her book down and scold Sherlock for having gone through her nightstand, when her ears were filled with a deafening bang.

Instincts kicked in and Joan tackled Sherlock from behind. Sherlock had been aiming at the other side of the living room, at a yellow smiley spray painted on the hideous walls, so she wasn’t exactly expecting to be rugby tackled by the smaller woman.

Joan’s Browning clattered to the floor, out of reach, but the gun quite frankly wasn’t what she was focusing on right then.

“Joan, for god’s sake, could you-“Sherlock writhed under Joan and managed to get onto her back, Joan still straddling her waist.

Joan cut her short by pulling Sherlock up by the fabric of her dressing gown and slammed her back down onto the floor, ungently.

“Don’t you _dare_ touch my gun again or so help me, Sherlock, I will tear you a new one - do you understand?!” At the last bit, she shook Sherlock a bit for good measure, but it wasn’t needed. Right then she wasn’t the jumper-wearing Joan, who smiled and complained, but Captain Watson Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, who both took and saved lives.

Sherlock lay completely still and stared up at her doctor. For a moment, everything in her head went quiet. All the ticks, all the observations, all the deductions. Above her were a Captain, seething with white burning anger, and yet all Sherlock saw was Joan Watson, with blue eyes and ash blonde hair.

Everything snapped back when Joan banged her into the floorboards again, yelling even louder: “Am I being perfectly clear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Sherlock breathed, and Joan let go.

“Good,” the smaller woman said with a hard stare and got up.

Sherlock didn’t even notice when Joan went out of the building or the fact that she didn’t return that night. All Sherlock could think of how Joan had made all the noise in her head disappear.

This later turned out to be the most complicated mystery Sherlock Holmes ever encountered.


End file.
